Keith’s Blog

Who Moved my Church?

Spencer Johnston is probably best known in the business world for co-authoring with Ken Blanchard the best-selling book, ‘The One Minute Manager.’ But this week, I’ve been reading one of his more unusual contributions to the field of literature, a simple little parable called ‘Who moved my cheese?’ Its a very short work (you can read it in less than an hour) and is about four hungry mice who live in a large, and up until now, predictable Maze. As the story begins, the mice have lived for a long time in one particular part of the Maze and up until recently, there has been more than a steady supply of cheese. But now, suddenly, at least it seemed that way, their cheese has disappeared. What will they do now?

In essence, it is a parable about dealing with change and about the fact that if we don’t not only will be go hungry in life but we will miss the opportunity to discover and enjoy a far more satisfying one that is yet to be discovered. To murder a pun, I would have to say that the parable is rather ‘cheesy’ at times for my liking but I do think it makes its points rather cleverly and is undoubtedly worth the read. It has left me wondering how we in MCC will ourselves deal with the ‘change’ issue as we seek to establish and then develop a new church that embodies the unchanging message of Jesus but does so in manner that is relevant and compelling for those in the ever-changing modern Ireland.

One huge benefit of being in a new church, of course, is that there is no long term patterns of community and ministry already in place that we have grown used to and are reluctant to move from. This creates for us a significant opportunity to explore and try out new methods and models of living our our faith in today’s society. Of course, we do have our widely varied individual experiences to face and moving through all our ‘issues’ towards a shared future together will still be a huge challenge. But, even so, surely we are among the best placed people in the whole nation to face it and discover what it means to overcome it. Indeed, if those of us in new churches don’t take on this challenge, don’t take the risk, don’t make the decisions to leave the comfort and security of our past in order to search for a far more effective and life-bringing future in our church life together, who will? If God is wholly comfortable in doing the ‘new thing’ (Isa 4:19), why would we be any different?

Even so, there may well be many times during these next few months and years when we will find ourselves anxious about the challenges we are facing and the decisions we must take. There may well be many occasions on which we are fearful about what is needed to stay true to our calling to God and our calling to our community. However scary those moments may be, and however radical those changes may be, I hope we will show courage and go for them. As long as it is God who has moved our church, surely there is nothing at all for us to fear.